Restructuring the Core Artist Experience for a Scalable Art Platform

Led the strategic restructuring of MutualArt’s core artist experience, shifting the platform from fragmented content navigation to an intent-based ecosystem for discovery, research, and collecting.

Role

UX/UI Design · Information Architecture · User Research

Project Overview

Context

MutualArt is an art data platform for collectors, galleries, and art enthusiasts, with around 1M monthly users and 115K premium subscribers. Artist pages are a primary entry point for discovering artworks, researching artists, and tracking the art market. Over time, the experience became fragmented across disconnected tabs and overlapping content, while buying, researching, and learning had no clear paths through the navigation.

Role & Goals

Led the restructuring of the artist experience across research, information architecture, interaction design, and implementation with product and development.

Outcomes

100%

Task success rate in usability testing

Up from 25%–67% on the old artist page

< 30 sec

Average task completion time

Down from ~2 minutes

+80 – +455%

Market Performance engagement

Post-launch increase across measured user segments

Information Architecture – Restructured navigation around user intent rather than content categories, reducing discovery time and informing the broader site redesign.
Design System – Established reusable navigation, card, and content patterns that improved consistency across the product.

Business Objective

UX Approach

Accelerate client conversion

🎯 Immediate insights & value through landing pages & visualizations

Reduce training costs

🎯 Simplified workflows & streamlined navigation

Enhance sales demo effectiveness

🎯 Improved data visualizations to showcase sustainability insights

Ensure frustration-free user flows

🎯 Task-oriented design for a smoother, intuitive experience

Before

After

Research Activities

Analyzed artist-page usage and navigation patterns in Mixpanel.
Conducted usability testing across the existing experience and two redesign iterations.
Mapped discovery journeys across buying, researching, and learning.
Mapped content relationships and navigation dependencies across artist pages.
Aligned user, business, and content needs through stakeholder workshops.

Usage data revealed a mismatch between navigation structure and user behavior.

Artworks

30%

Auction Results

20%

Biography

17%

Exhibitions

For Sale

Articles

0.9%

Signatures

1.4%

Performance

0.7%

Monthly avg unique views per tab as % of total artist page visits · Apr-Sep 2025, Mixpanel

3 tabs drove 67% of all visits.

The remaining 6 tabs collectively accounted for less than 9% of engagement.

High-value market data was barely discovered. Performance attracted just 0.7% of visitors despite containing price history, auction turnover, and comparable artist data.

Key findings

01 Users arrived with goals, not categories

Users came to artist pages with specific objectives: discovering artworks, researching market value, or learning about an artist. The navigation reflected content categories rather than these goals, making it difficult to know where to start.

02 Content placement did not match user expectations

Artworks for sale, auction results, market insights, and artist information were distributed across multiple sections, making information difficult to predict and creating dead ends.

03 Discovery and research experiences were blended together

Current listings, historical sales data, market analysis, and artist information appeared side by side without clear separation. Users often followed the wrong path for their objective and missed relevant content.

Navigation Restructure

Before: 9 tabs by content type

Overview

Artworks

30%

Auction Results

20%

Biography

17%

For Sale

Exhibitions

Signatures

1.4%

Performance

0.7%

Articles

0.9%

→

After: 3 groups by user intent

Buy

Gallery artworks

Upcoming Auction Lots

Research

Auction results

Market performance

Price history

Learn

Biography

Exhibitions

Articles & Signatures

design directions

Two concepts were explored. Both aimed to improve discoverability and navigation, but approached the problem differently: a simplified navigation model versus a dashboard-based overview.

Option 1

Simplified content-based navigation

Familiar structure
Reduced number of tabs
Separate destination pages, such as exhibitions
Multiple carousels remain

Option 2

Dashboard-based experience

Goal-oriented structure
Key content surfaced immediately
Reduced navigation effort
Entry point adapts to user intent

Option 1

Option 2

I moved forward with the dashboard direction because it surfaced key content around users’ goals while reducing reliance on navigation. The concept was then tested and refined through usability testing.

usability testing

Existing artist page

Six participants, most of them art collectors and new to MutualArt, completed five tasks across the main artist page sections. Users found the platform credible and data-rich, but navigation complexity consistently disrupted task completion. Most bypassed artist-specific tabs and defaulted to global search, breaking out of the artist context and losing their place.

Selected tasks

Find gallery artwork

33% · 1:55

Find past auction results

25% · 1:46

Find exhibitions

50% · 1:25

Key changes after testing

The first dashboard prototype was tested with four participants. While the overview performed well, content overlap and multiple navigation levels remained confusing. This led to several structural changes:

Artworks scoped to for-sale works only
Auction Results limited to past sales
Performance was separated into its own tab to reduce the depth and complexity of the Research section
Cross-page links added to bridge gaps for users who expected broader content within each section

Redesign v2

The revised prototype was tested with additional five participants. All core tasks were completed successfully, with users staying within the artist context throughout.

Selected tasks

Find gallery artwork

100% · ~0:30

Find past auction results

100% · ~0:20

Find exhibitions

100% · ~0:15

Performance and Exhibitions were tested separately with four additional, more experienced participants through open discussion rather than structured tasks. Both sections were substantially redesigned: Performance with clearer charts and a new Repeat Sales feature, and Exhibitions with added analytics to help users assess an artist’s market activity and visibility.

"

Alicia, artist & gallery manager

The overview is very powerful.

final design

1. Overview as entry point

The overview surfaces the most important artist information in one place, allowing users to begin exploring without first choosing a section.

Artist Overview

Clickable sections

Each overview block is fully clickable and links directly to the relevant tab, encouraging deeper exploration without requiring users to navigate manually.

Simplified labels

Shorter, clearer section names improved scanning and reduced ambiguity.

Performance data for all users

High-level market performance metrics are surfaced on the overview for all users, not just Premium. The decision was made to demonstrate platform value upfront and give every user a reason to engage more deeply.